


Yours, Mine, Ours

by tanarill



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: (Is Terrible), (Tonguejob?), (Weird and Gross), (and Glow and Glow), (discussed), Adulting, Afterglow, Agape, Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alien Sex, Babies, Choices, Chores, Claiming, Come Eating, Consent Issues, Consentacles, Dadfeels, Dating, Definitions Thereof, Developing Friendships, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Consent, Friendship, Gambling, Good Life Choices, Grocery Shopping, Horny, House Cleaning, Human Biology, Hunters & Hunting, Hunting, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Islamophobia, Look At Your Life Look At Your Choices, Male-Female Friendship, Mass Spectroscopy, Masturbation, Mental Link, Messy, Multi, Phenylethylamine, Philios, Popcorn, Post-Coital Cuddling, Racism, Rape/Non-con Elements, Science, Seals (Animals), Sex, Slavery, Sleep, Social Justice, Superheroes, Swearing, Trust Issues, Watching, anti-Semitism, asking for help, blowjob, movies - Freeform, mutual, neurochemistry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-07 07:47:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanarill/pseuds/tanarill
Summary: Learning to be 'we.'





	1. In Which Dan Actually Did Go To Medical School

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [Twoje, moje, nasze](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16460732) by [tehanu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehanu/pseuds/tehanu)



> Help! I've fallen into a new fandom and I can't get up!
> 
> . . . but on the plus side, this one seems to be totally on-board with the idea of Enthusiastic Consentacles. This is an actual AO3 tag, which currently doesn't get enough use. Please fix that, the Venom fans!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last month, the composite entity calling itself Venom probably saved the people of earth from a fate worse than death.
> 
> This month, they're going to try to stop needing to eat brains like some cheap sci-fi horror flick.

"I need help," says Eddie, when he shows up at the hospital in the middle of a work day with absolutely no warning and falls into step beside him. Then, in an entirely different voice - deeper, more resonant - he says, " _We_ need help."

Dan nearly jumps out of his skin. "Jesus fuck!" he says, and pulls Eddie sideways into a blood lab, thankfully empty. "What the hell?"

"We need help," repeats Eddie again, and this time it's only Eddie.

"Yes, I got that," says Dan, scrubbing a hand over his face. "All right. On a scale of, 'the world is going to end in the next half-hour' to 'I just can't be bothered to use my phone like a human being,' how urgent is this?"

Eddie does, at least, have the grace to look embarrassed. "Sorry. I didn't know your number, and I'm kind of trying not to let him get too close to Anne. He's . . . weird, about Anne. Please don't tell her."

"Yeah, okay," says Dan, softening a bit. Anne doesn't really _need_ protecting from much, but he's willing to allow that Eddie isn't wrong to put 'cannibal alien' on that list. "Can this wait, though? I have a meeting about removing a brain tumor."

"Oh," says Eddie. "Yeah. Actually, we can exchange numbers now. I just needed to make sure you wouldn't freak out."

Dan is absolutely planning to freak out. He just can't do it _now_ , because brain surgery planning, and also the cannibal alien who is currently watching him. Still, he exchanges numbers and then goes and has a very long and difficult talk with a patient who is most likely going to die anyway. After that he's got a couple of MRIs, during which they catch a couple of tumors early enough that probably the people will survive, and he diagnoses a case of early-onset Alzheimer's. It's not a great day, to the point that he actually forgets about Eddie and Eddie's - friend - for a bit, before he pulls out his phone to maybe send Anne a note about being on the way home and finds Eddie's text waiting for him instead. It reads:

Eddie Brock  
  
I can handle the eating things alive. I can even just about wrap my head around the number of live things. But the thing where he goes after brains specifically is like the world's worst horror zombie movie, and you know that thing about every problem looking like a nail to a hammer? So. We need help.  
  


He hesitates only a moment.

Eddie Brock  
  
I'm not sure how you want me to help.  
  
He knows he was hungry, back when LIFE had him, but not hungry for _brains_. And now I'm feeding him properly he isn't hungry for anything but brains. We think there is one specific chemical, something they could just give with the IV. We need you to figure out what it is.  
  
Where are you getting the brains?  
  


He's almost entirely sure he doesn't want to know, but on the other hand, there hasn't been a rash of murders or sudden thefts of heads out of the morgue, so . . .

Eddie Brock  
  
Rats  
  


Which is just as gross as he is expecting, but is at least not people. Still, he can see why Eddie would come to him.

Eddie Brock  
  
Right. We need to have a face-to-face. I'm not free tomorrow. Thursday lunch?  
  
Yeah  
  


Thursday lunch is . . .

They go to a steakhouse at which Eddie orders the biggest meat dish they sell, a plate full of ribs meant for a party. Over the course of the next hour, he proceeds to polish off the entire thing.

"So," he says, while they're waiting for the food.

"We were reviewing memories, or trying to," says Eddie, and makes a face. "He doesn't really _remember_ things except as instinct. I mean, he doesn't have anything resembling organs, much less a brain. The way he says it, he remembers things with _my_ brain, which doesn't work if we're trying to remember things I wasn't there for. But he's pretty sure they gave him a whole bunch of different things to see which ones he'd eat."

"All of them," says Dan, who knows at least this much.

"Which ones he needed, then," says Eddie. "It's weird. Like supposedly the whole reason pregnant women get cravings is so they can eat things with the nutrients they need? I don't think that's how his species works, but I'm getting the cravings now because he can't."

"Is that why you're eating a whole plate full of ribs?"

"I'm eating a plate full of ribs because our metabolism is nuts," says Eddie. "I looked it up. I should be gaining weight like no one's business, giving myself gout, ammonia poisoning, but - nope. Nothing. That's not the problem. I can eat a lot of meat. I can go jump in the bay and let him eat some octopuses. That's fine. But there's still something missing."

"Ah," he says, and, "and it only occurs in brains?"

"No," says Eddie. "I can eat my weight in chocolate, too, or natto, or sourdough starter." He made a face, and Dan idly wondered how he'd learned that. "But he can't do whatever he does with the meat to things that aren't meat, so then I get sick."

"Bacteria make all of the chemicals," he says, and, "Can you get a sample?"

"A sample," says Eddie.

"Of whatever it is. Neurochemistry is complicated. I know it's not . . . I know asking a starving person not to eat is a shitty thing to do, but the fastest way is a sample. The hospital has a mass spec."

"Okay?" says Eddie.

He sighs. "One-step identification of most chemicals. There's a massive database, if it matches anything that anyone anywhere has ever mass-specced in the past, we'll be able to ID it in about ten minutes."

"Oh," says Eddie, and then doesn't say anything else.

"Eddie?" he asks, after a bit.

Eddie holds up a finger, telling him to wait a moment, and Dan realizes he's not being quiet, he's just having a conversation that Dan can't hear. Finally he says, "How much do you need?"

"A few milligrams, maybe?" says Dan. "The mass spec actually detects at much smaller concentrations, but unless the guy is a chemist, I'm not sure we can translate units of parts-per-million into something he can make."

Eddie's quiet for a bit longer, and then he smiles ruefully and says, "We'll try. You figure out what the lowest detectable amount is, and I guess I have to go to a library. Is there anything else you can do in the meantime?"

"I mean," says Dan. "We can start feeding you - him? - chemicals that are found in the brain but not - mostly - the peripheral nervous system. I don't know. How does he feel about fat?"

" . . . not-food," says Eddie, after a moment. "Like, he doesn't have any issue with it, it's just. Not edible."

"Then probably not any of the myelin components," says Dan. "The only other thing I can think of is, well, neurotransmitters, but I have no idea which ones."

"What do you mean?"

"The biggest ones are cortisols, epinephrine - that's adrenaline - and acteylcholine. It's not acetylcholine because most muscles run on that kind of synapse, and he'd just need more meat. It's probably not epinephrine, because I can't imagine anything he catches and eats _wouldn't_ be panicking. So it's got to be a cortisol, but that, like. Don't eat the topical cream, you know? They put a whole bunch of other toxic stuff in that."

"As far as I can tell," says Eddie, "there isn't anything really toxic to him. He can just eat it, or he ignores and extrudes it. He can _absolutely_ eat the topical cream."

"So go to a drug store, get some hydrocortisone, and make him eat it," says Dan. "And . . . do we have any idea if your blood is normal? Like, we could run a panel on it?"

"No," says Eddie, voice gone back to rumbly and low. "We don't know what it looks like, but we are sure it won't look anything like human. And that's not a sample we want anyone else to have." Then his rack of ribs arrives along with Dan's perfectly acceptable salmon, and they stop talking, about aliens or in general.

 

So that's Thursday at lunch. By that evening, he has a text from Eddie telling him that cortisol is definitely not the right thing, and also he needs a graduated cylinder and an analytical balance.

Eddie Brock  
  
Why?  
  
He probably can make parts-per-million solutions, but so far all we know is that he can taste homeopathic amounts of salt. We need to calibrate.  
  
I could swipe the cylinder, but someone will notice if a balance goes missing. You'll have to come back to the hospital. Tomorrow afternoon?  
  
Ok  
  


Friday afternoon Eddie shows up in that disturbing way he has where the hallway is empty and then he's standing next to you. Dan hauls him into a lab which is scheduled to be empty and in about twenty minutes they make a bunch of salt solutions ranging from 'seawater' down to, as Eddie put it, 'homeopathic.'

"Okay," says Eddie, looking at the rack of test tubes. "Do you want to stick around for this part?"

The answer is no, but someone has to pretend to be the responsible adult. "I am not leaving you unsupervised in a lab, no."

"Your choice," says Eddie. "Okay, here goes," and the alien comes out. It's just as creepy and gross to watch as it was before was before, with far too many teeth that don't meet in mammal-approved ways. It's also a whole lot less scary, because he can tell in the way panic isn't crawling up his spine that the alien has absolutely no desire to hurt him even a little. He's ignored entirely, in fact. Instead, it picks up the first test tube, the one that has homeopathic salt, and drinks it.

They'd decided to have it drink tap water between, to cleanse whatever bizarre array of chemical detectors aliens call a palate. After the third test tube, it turns to him and says, "The tap water is salty, too."

"Er," he says. "It's California. We get a choice between tap water with enough minerals in it that even _we_ can taste it, or salt at levels we can't."

"Not much of a reset, though," it points out, with a kind of wry twist that suggests that was a joke. It - he? - is otherwise silent as he works his way up, through 'blood isosaline' and then 'seawater.' Then he puts down the last tube, and withdraws until it's just Eddie standing there again.

"Okay?" Dan asks.

"Yeah," says Eddie. "Man, I wasn't paying attention before, but he just does not taste things the same way. Should we, uh," says Eddie, gesturing at the tubes.

"Those are single-use," he says. "Put them in the glass waste, they melt them down and make new ones."

"Okay," says Eddie, and once they've put away the big bin of sodium chloride, the lab is as clean as they found it. "Have any idea of when we're going to be able to mass spec this stuff?"

"Uh. Do you know when there will be enough . . . "

Eddie shrugs. "Morning is probably easiest. I can just let him be out all night hunting seals to collect the stuff. Plus he'll be as close to not-hungry as he ever gets for morning. If that's okay."

"All right," he says. "Morning, earlier is better, as soon as I can. I'll text you. Uh. Can I ask - do you get enough sleep?"

"Oh," says Eddie. "Yeah. He says he's eating the brain junk so I only need about six hours a night now, but he can totally run around anyway while I'm sleeping. I make him do hunting like that, most nights."

"Hunting, or . . . ?"

Eddie rolls his eyes. "He can't actually lie about it. The memories are stored in _my_ brain. He hunts rats."

Yeah. It makes total sense that Eddie would want to be unconscious for that.

"Ok," says Dan. "I'll let you know."

Then he goes home. Annie isn't there yet, but he isn't on call again until Sunday so he has time to make something nice. Annie comes home at seven, walks two feet into the house, and drops her bag. "Dan?"

"Here," he calls, from the kitchen.

"What brought this on," she says, voice dopplering as she comes closer.

"Apology dinner," he says.

"Apology? Did you do something wrong?"

"Tell you at dinner."

"All right," she says, and goes to shower off the day.

They have dinner. He made cucumber soup and manicotti and tried making brownies but they're a bit burnt on the bottom. Anne smiles and cuts the bottom off and eats them anyway. "So," she says.

"So, you remember Eddie Brock's friend? The, uh, the foreign one?"

She looks at him, incredulous. He manages to suppress the wince. There is zero chance that she forgot about Eddie Brock's foreign friend, not while he puppetted _her_ around for a while.

"It turns out that reports of said friend's death have been greatly exaggerated."

Her eyes widen and she says, "But - " and then stops herself and takes a deep breath. "Eddie's okay. I saw him last week."

"Yeah," says Dan. "They're . . . I think that if I took a scan _now_ I wouldn't find an alien chowing down on anyone's internal organs. I'd find an alien that's wrapped around every cell in his body, or possibly infecting them, but it would be giving just as much as it's taking. A true symbiote."

"Oh," says Anne. And then, because she isn't an idiot, she says, "And he didn't tell me because . . . " He can practically see her thinking it through, picking up and then dropping the possibilities. Finally she says, "Is he trying to _protect_ me?"

"I don't think there's any physical danger," says Dan. "Eddie said that he's, and I quote, 'weird about you,' end quote.

"Yeah, I bet," says Anne, still mildly outraged. "Wait. If he's okay, and he doesn't want me to find out, why'd he tell _you_?"

"Ah," says Dan. "Well."

It comes out, while they finish the semi-burnt chocolate and box up the leftovers and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Anne goes quiet, into listening-lawyer-mode, as he explains. Then, at the end, she says, "So he wants help, and he asked for it, and you _are_ helping. Was there an actual apology in this apology dinner?"

"I didn't tell you as soon as I found out," he says.

Anne looks at him for a moment before breaking into laughter. "Forgiven," she says. "I'll text Eddie about it later."

 

He's not really party to the argument that she and Eddie have. He's only aware that it even happens because Eddie texts him on Wednesday night.

Eddie Brock  
  
Dick move, Lewis. Do you have a time yet?  
  


He does, actually, so he texts back the date and a time - Monday night, so late it's early - and a location.

When Eddie shows up, a bit over a week later, it's just Eddie. The instrument tech, who is in the lab at four as a personal favor to him, looks at him and then turns to Dan and says, "Eddie _Brock_?" dubiously.

He rolls his eyes. "He's not _using_ , I told you. It's a mystery chemical that we can isolate but don't have a name for. We just want to check if it's in the database."

"Yeah, you _said_ ," says the tech, but drops it in favor of getting out the standards. He isn't looking at Eddie when he says, "Okay. Do you have the sample?"

"Er," says Eddie. "Sort of. Do you have a test tube? I'll go to the bathroom and fill it up."

" _Do not_. Mass spec is not pee-in-a-cup, Brock."

"No," says Eddie. "I wouldn't."

The tech looks between him and Dan, and then sighs. "Yeah, okay," he says, and grabs one of the big 5-mL eppendorfs. "Here. Make it, oh, a hundred nanomolar. We can dilute it down if we have to."

Eddie goes. While he's gone, the tech says, "So . . . "

"You really don't want to know," says Dan. "I wish _I_ didn't know."

"Right."

When Eddie comes back, about five minutes later, the mass spec is up and running through the calibrants. "All right. Do we have any idea about the charge of this thing?"

"Probably negative. It's a biomolecule."

"All right. We'll try negative scanning mode. If that doesn't work, we'll dilute it fifty-fifty with fumarate and try in positive mode."

Negative scanning mode doesn't see anything, so they try again in fumarate. The spec sees lots and lots and lots of fumarate. Once it's told to ignore the fumarate, there's a single peak, 122.8 grams.

The tech turns to Eddie. "Are you sure you aren't using? That two methyl groups off of being methamphetamine."

"It is?" asks Eddie, and that's not an act: he genuinely does not know.

"So? What's methamphetamine called when it's down those two methyls?" asks Dan.

"Uh, give me a sec." The program he pulls up is a structural search; after about a minute of drawing, he hits the search button. The IUPAC and SMILES and proper chemical names come up, and also the actual name. "Phenylethylamine."

"What's it do?" asks Dan.

"According to Google?" He's already got the Wikipedia up. "Neuromodulator."

'Oh, hey," says Eddie. "Go back. You can _buy_ it?"

"Kind of. It's the stuff responsible for runner's high, so I guess someone decided that you can get the high just by eating it? But in the stomach it'll be oxidized to the acid. Barely any would get through to the blood. It's a waste of money."

"But they do _sell_ it?" persists Eddie.

"Sure."

"Great," said Eddie. "Wonderful. Thank you. Is there, uh, anything else, or - "

"No," says Dan. "Let me know how it goes."

"Are you _sure_ he isn't using?" asks the tech, once he's gone.

"I wish," says Dan. "At least that's something you can treat."

 

He doesn't hear anything at all for a week straight, and then he gets a text. Just one.

Eddie Brock  
  
Thanks. From both of us.  
  


He shows it to Anne when he gets home. She reads it, then looks up again at him. "You realize," she says, "that you're now their go-to medical friend, whenever anyone needs something medical but legally dubious?"

"Well," he says, after a moment, because no, he hadn't thought that at all, "I know a pretty good lawyer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have not seen this movie! The entire inspiration for this one came from two facts. One, Google informs me that you don't have to eat brains or chocolate or natto to get phenylethylamine. You can just buy it. A five-kg bottle costs a hair over two hundred dollars. Two, Dan Lewis probably did have to pass his MCAT before they even allowed him to go to medical school, as one does. Therefore, he almost certainly knows what a mass spec is. Then I thought: DO A SCIENCE TO IT. And this was the result.
> 
> (For those of you whose day job is not 'chemist': a mass spec is a device that allows you to know the exact molecular weight of an unknown compound. This is a lot more powerful than it sounds, especially if you have a guess about what the molecule looks like. As an example: that thing the MS tech did in the fic, where he looked as the mass of the compound and went 'it's off by two methyl units from being crystal meth'? That's a thing I've seen MS techs do. MS people are magic.)
> 
> Real adults Adult by asking other adults for help when they need it. ~~In that spirit: does anyone know how to format lines so they appear in text-message-bubbles? I don't want to, like, take a screenshot. I just want them to be formatted as though I did.~~ And thanks to [ijzer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ijzer/pseuds/ijzer) for linking me to [this formatting guide](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14729722) so now I can make things look like iPhone texts.
> 
> And, uh, hi Venom people! Welcome! \o


	2. In Which Anne Learns Some Things, and Recontextualizes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even the smallest of things strive.

It's the second Wednesday of the month, so she and Eddie are doing lunch. Of course, this is the morning only a few days after the night before, so some things are different; but not different enough that she is willing to put off this confrontation. Instead, she waits until they've ordered - soup and sandwich for her, chicken caesar salad for him - before she says, "Isn't your friend going to hate that?"

Eddie freezes. Then, slowly, like his head is on wire, he raises it to look at her.

"I'm not mad," she says, because that's the kind of thing he would think. "I'm sorry that you didn't feel like you could trust me with this, but I'm not _mad_. I just - Eddie. What the fuck?"

"Um," says Eddie, looking at her like a deer caught in the headlights.

"I get that you want to protect me," she says. "We can talk about how making my decisions for me is inappropriate later. What I'm really confused about is - you and I both know I don't _need_ protecting! Not from him!"

"Um," says Eddie, and scrubs his face with one hand. "Yeah, no, that's not the issue."

"Then what is?"

"I'm doing a lot of translating here," says Eddie. "I mean, a _lot_ , so it might not make sense in English, to start. Okay?"

"Okay," she says.

"So, they actually - like, they didn't just magically _appear_ on that meteor. There was a ship, and a crash, and they went into long term hibernation just to survive. Somewhere out there is, or was, a whole planet full of - I can't get a great sense of how they look, either, but humans are definitely the wrong species. They evolved _with_ their - it's absolutely wild, like, the right species couldn't even reach adulthood until they found a symbiote and paired up. But also, they were kind of . . . incredibly stupid. Not much more than animals, really, until they bonded with a symbiote, and then the symbiotes settled in and made improvements and in the end there was one composite person with the ability to parallel process. That's what they're supposed to do. That's what they _evolved_ to do."

"Okay . . . " she says, wondering where this is going.

"They don't actually live there any more. As soon as they got off their planet, met wider galactic civilization, they took one look around and decided that they wanted that and they weren't going to ask nicely. They started to - it's not really a bond, when one of the two people involved doesn't want it, is fighting the whole time. Besides which they weren't interested in giving anything _back_. They just used up a host and moved on. Serious 'and I must scream' territory.

"Jesus, Eddie," she says.

He gives her a thin smile. "Yeah. There are some losers, of course. Some people who think that being a roving planetary genocide is a bad idea and they should stop. People who would like to - I don't think they can go home, really, he won't tell me what happened but I'm getting the sense the galaxy retaliated - but who think the host _should_ consent. That it should be a meeting of equals, even if it can't be a merging the way it would be with the right species."

He stops. Then he says, "My guy spent a long time being a loser. Not so much of one that he wouldn't - but he knew that being a parasite isn't right. He is kind of _extremely_ messed up about doing that to you. Okay? It's not like he's dangerous to you. He won't hurt you. It's just that consent is sexy and he doesn't want to have been that asshole, ever but especially not now that we've met and he can be something else."

"Oh," she says. It's so far out of left field that she literally has no idea how to respond.

"Yeah," says Eddie. "And besides that, I didn't want him at the start, and even now that I do he's a little shaky on the concept of boundaries that can change. We're . . . working on it."

"Oh," she says again, and then their food arrives. Once they've arranged it on the table and thanked the waitress, she says, "But he can't survive outside of - "

" _We know_ ," says Eddie, and his voice is a deeper purr, more dangerous. "We know. That doesn't excuse rape." She has no idea what her expression is, but it must say something loud and clear, because he pulls back. "Rape is the closest word we can find, and it's still not strong enough. We - _I_ am sorry. I'm sorry."

There is a pause.

Anne decides. "All right," she says. "I am retroactively and for all future occasions giving you my consent to hang out in me if you need to so you can _not die_ , but only for as long as it takes to get you back to Eddie. Okay? You're not that asshole because you _choose_ not to be, and you don't deserve to have to die to prove it."

"How do you _know_?" It's a desperate plea. Anne finds it . . . sad, that this particular alien has been a monster for so long he doesn't even know what not being one feels like. Possibly, given the implied history and Eddie's use of past tense, he never had a chance to be anything else.

"You were _in my head_ , and the only thing you thought about the whole time was making sure Eddie was safe. You were ready to die for him. We thought you _had_. Trust me. You're not." She pauses, then adds, "And thanks. For making that choice _before_ your species killed mine."

" . . . welcome," he says, dubiously, like he isn't entirely sure he believes this good fortune but also isn't willing to disagree with her out loud. She can imagine the conversation just fine.

"Okay," she says. "Now. One more thing. Dan said that - you were hurting Eddie. Shrinking his organs, I mean, even though it was an incomplete MRI - "

"Yes," says Venom again. "Was still getting used to . . . here. Earth. Went to library. We got books!"

"Er," says Anne.

"On human anatomy," says Eddie. "And human biochemistry. We're still, um. He fixed it! Or. Sort of fixed it."

"Eddie - "

"Look, human beings are just _terribly engineered_. That's not me talking, that's the entire scientific and medical community. So once he knew what they were supposed to do, he brought everything up to the most functional human organs ever get. The thing is, 'as good as it gets' isn't as good as he can do. I'm fixed except for the parts of me that are better than fixed."

"Oh," says Anne. "He can do that? Wait, hold on, maybe I want him back after all. If he can fix the batshit insanity that is a uterus - "

Eddie laughs.

They go on after that, and she can see that he's - better. He's finally actually sleeping enough, which was one of the things the two of them had been terrible about, each enabling the other to stay up too late working on this or that project. The rings under his eyes have gone. He's also eating more healthy foods, although maybe what is healthy for him is significantly different than it is for everyone else now. He's voluntarily consuming salad, at least, whereas all he ever seemed to want was starch and protein. They finish lunch with a conversation about a story he's working, doctors at the Stanford X-ray beam inventing a new kind of material imaging.

Eddie's a little cagey about meeting next month, though, as they walk back towards her car. At least until she says, "Don't you dare stay away. You're my friend. I mean . . . both of you. If you want."

"We want," says Eddie and more-than-Eddie.

"Yeah," she says. "So, friend? You have a name?"

"We are Venom."

" . . . is that a name you want, or a name you had because you were a big scary parasitic bodysnatcher? Because it's kind of not a _name_ in the latter case."

"It's kind of a name," says Eddie. "Like, a superhero name."

"Okay, point," she says. "But not a name-name. Not a name for a real person. Are you going to be a superhero?"

Eddie doesn't respond with words, but does hold up a finger. She understands that he is explaining what a superhero is, and therefore waits calmly. After a bit, he says, "If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . we don't know about small-time vigilante stuff, that seems like more of a police thing, but, uh, for potentially global things."

She nods. "That's probably a good idea. I know you've been keeping this pretty close to the chest otherwise, and given the LIFE launch incident . . . "

That's what they were calling it. So far everyone seemed to actually believe that it was a rocket failure just after launch: tragic, of course, but not actually something with any guilty party. LIFE has been launching rockets just like these for a decade without mishap. The engineering autopsy is incredibly hampered by the fact that it had broken up over, and then rained into, the Bay. They've got the main fuselage and found the massive hole from the explosion, but without those debris it's going to be hard to determine cause versus effect. So far, the divers aren't having much luck.

"Well, you should think about a real-person-name," says Anne. "Since you're staying and all."

"Yes," says Venom, in their odd two-toned voice. "We will."

 

Once Eddie has roared off on his bike, she opens her phone and calls Dan. "Anne?"

"Twenty on Eddie and his 'friend' being a couple by Thanksgiving."

"You think it's going to take that long?" replies Dan immediately. "Halloween at the latest. Forty on them being the kind of ridiculous in-love where they unironically call each other things like 'love' and 'darling.'"

She thinks about the way they'd thought, in those hours rushing back to Eddie. The closest the symbiote had gotten to articulating it was, 'Jeez, what a dick, being so much trouble like this,' even when they were half incoherent with worry and Anne had to do all the driving because like Hell she was letting an alien who'd never been behind the wheel before drive her car. And that was only in their head. Out loud? "You're on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Normally I only post on Fridays, but this week an ideas bunny bit, so you get two things on two consecutive days. (I can't really call it a plot when the plot is 'people having conversations.') I'm leaning kind of heavily on what the comics told us about Venom's past, because apparently we don't get told in the movie, which I still have not seen. Here. Have some good life choices.


	3. Negotiating Boundaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie jerks off. His symbiote approves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today was terrible. Have some more of this.
> 
> Please note the rating change, and also I added a whole bunch more tags. You have been warned.

Eddie is horny. He's been idly thinking about jerking off all day, and then when it gets to the point of being a conscious thought, he immediately shoves it away. After the sixth or seven time this happens, curiosity overrides caution.

**Why don't you jerk off, Eddie?**

Eddie sort of - jolts. It is not an entirely unpleasant sensation - at least one of the neurochemicals associated with the heightened state of awareness is absolutely _delicious_ \- but that doesn't make it in any way good. Putting a host under the stress caused by the long-term residence of an unwanted parasite is always some degree of bad. Eddie isn't fighting, Eddie _wants_ , which is such a vast improvement over literally every single other host that that aren't words. It just doesn't seem to be enough of a difference. Eddie keeps freaking out anyway.

_Jesus. How do you even know about jerking off?_

**_You_ know.** How many times are they going to have to go over this? **You should.You want to.**

_You don't._

**Don't _mind_.**

_Such a ringing endorsement,_ Eddie thinks in wry response, but it's not exactly a no, either.

It is extremely simple in Eddie's mind: either everyone involved consents and something is fine, or they don't so it isn't. In some ways this is good. Anne likes them now, for one. In other ways it is terrible, because there is no room for grey areas, such as, 'weird host reproductive practices are not interesting, but also not annoying,' and the extreme, lovely indulgence of being able to do something solely for the host's comfort, without it having to be justified by the mission.' Eddie only gets some of that, because he goes quiet-confused-curious.

**Not complicated, Eddie. Is not sex. Will not hurt me, _and_ good for you. Should.**

For some reason, this makes Eddie go all indignant. _In what way is it not sex?_

Eddie has been avoiding giving what even in his head he calls 'the Talk.' There doesn't seem to be any real reason for the capital letter. It's gross, but as host reproduction goes it's fairly standard. **Will not make babies.**

_Yeah, sure,_ Eddie thinks. _It's still sex._ Most _sex is non-reproductive, you know. There's data. Out of eight reasons to have sex, making babies ranked dead last in every demographic._

**Why?**

_Why did it rank last, or why do we do it when we're not trying to have children?_

**Yes.** And then, judiciously, **Seems . . . messy. Unpleasant.**

Eddie finds this amusing. That's good. The ones that make his mind taste good are all nice emotions. _Children can be,_ allows Eddie, but he's regretful even while he thinks it.

**Want children? Eddie?**

Eddie laughs, but he's not amused. _I did, but I'm not really . . . children need to eat every day. Children need to eat at the same time every day, and for the first few years they aren't even capable of feeding themselves. Parents have to be a level of responsible I just can't give. I have enough experience with parents who weren't anything like ready for it to know. I won't do that to anyone._ Eddie only knew one parent, really, but he has enough memories of being shoved in front of a television because that one parents was exhausted and overwhelmed. And he is, indeed, too good a person to do that. _Why? How do you guys make babies?_

**Eat well in good host. Babies bud.**

_. . . they_ bud _? Like, what, a spider plant? Just grow until they're big enough and then fall off?_

A quick check of Eddie's memories is all it takes to learn what a spider plant is. **Good comparison.**

The next question is tinged with horror and a little hysteria. _Are you going to do that?_

**Eat _well_ , Eddie. Nothing here has the right metals.**

_Oh._ Relief. _Wait, so, you guys don't have sex at all? Ever?_

 **Sex isn't good.** When dying en mass, of starvation or disease, his species can group up and put whatever resources they have left, along with whatever memories and strategies and genetic variation they have, into a few dozen eggs. Then they hope that things are better by the time the eggs hatch. Hope is all that can be done, at that point, because sexual reproduction takes too much from an already-dying body. It always kills the parents.

_And you say we're gross . . . For budding, though. There's no conscious decision on your part, is there? It just sort of happens when the conditions are right. No wonder. Evolution never had to figure out how to get you to want to have sex._

**Ed _die_!**

Eddie's amusement doesn't fade, but he does explain. _It's because pregnancy and birth are so weird and messy and, yeah, unpleasant. It has to happen anyway, so all of the species that survived are the ones that find it fun. And then humans invented condoms and birth control and hijacked it, so we can do the fun parts without all the rest. When we're doing the fun parts with someone else, we call it sex. Even - especially - when we don't want babies. Last I checked, you count as someone. Therefore: sex._

Oh. Well. If that is how he is going to define it.

 **Still . . . don't mind.** It's not entirely the truth, but probably Eddie knows enough now to understand that any reservations aren't about him at all, and anyway, **Want you to feel _good_.**

Eddie gives in, palpably, even before he thinks consciously, _Yeah. Okay._

Eddie finishes doing all the usual Sunday things, like buying groceries and cleaning the apartment. Actually he wouldn't have minded living in a sty, but it wasn't good for him. It had taken nagging to get him to start, but the improvement is enough that he's continued without extra prompting. Just now it is a bit unwelcome, because they want this tension between them settled. At the same time, it's a welcome reprieve. Everything is going to change. The only question is how.

The chores don't last forever, though, so then Eddie strips naked and gets into the bed and gets out some stuff full of terrible chemicals that he claims is useful. "All right," he says, softly. "All right."

Ten mildly awkward minutes pass. Some of the chemicals are nice. Some aren't.

 **Something wrong?** Eddie is not less horny. Their body just, now that it is time, doesn't seem to be interested.

Eddie huffs a short breath of laughter. "Performance anxiety. I happens."

It does happen, but not to Eddie, not often. Usually only when he's nervous about a woman he's serious about. The last time was before he proposed to Anne -

"Yeah," says Eddie, closing his eyes. "Us, what we have - it's is at _least_ as deep a relationship as marriage."

More so, but Eddie still doesn't quite seem to _get_ it. Also, Eddie _likes_ all those traits that make a loser. Maybe it's time for truth. **Want you to feel _good_. Was not supposed to want . . . ** Feeling good is the least of it. There are others who indulge their hosts, usually in return for some compliance or stupor, whatever, but it's seen as bargaining for something that should just be taken. Wanting a host to feel good _just because_ is deviant. Wanting more, wanting anything similar to the ebb and flow that they are still learning to share . . .

"Oh," says Eddie, and, "You could have just said."

**Did.**

"Not clearly enough," he says, and it's true. Something in the part of his brain all the books call the hyppocampus has stopped dropping the greasy compound that is probably _cortisol_ into his blood. He relaxes almost immediately, and the body gets the message too, because it gets with the program as well.

Then it is very interesting. Horny is just a different kind of host-hunger, except instead of food or drink it's a set of actions. That's fine. Their body gets twitchy if they don't spend forty minutes carrying around useless lumps of metal every other day, too. Only, after Eddie starts moving, a whole rainbow of neurochemicals spills out. The appeal is suddenly very, very obvious, because they're the _good_ ones: the one Dan (not absolutely awful all the time after all) identified as _phenylethylanime_ , and the ones that are tentatively _dopamine_ and _tyramine_. No wonder humans spend so much time rubbing off on each other, if they turn their brains into this glorious cascade whenever they do.

Eddie keeps moving, and the cascade keeps happening, but something else is happening too. Eddie is remembering: the kiss in the night, rejoining each other in a blaze of mutual fierce defensive longing. The choice, by both of them, to keep the plague of parasites off this planet. He is _liking_ it, like a shock in reverse, tingles starting at the extremities and moving up their limbs to pool under their hand, winding them tighter. Eddie is thinking about the unthinking strength of a limb pulling him out of the way of gunfire. Eddie is thinking about the question: what are you? They are thinking about the answer: We are Venom, and you are _mine_. They are thinking, mask, copy, and then they're thinking, we can do whatever we want.

**_We_.**

It's enough. It's more than enough, so much more than mere chemicals and electrical impulses. It's _them_ , together, unified the way a symbiote and host should always be. Eddie comes, shaking, his breath in sobs. From the inside, it's beautiful, and blinding, and there is no going back from this, ever. Not knowing what it can be like.

"Hey," says Eddie, after a while, a little hoarsely. "What happened to 'weird and gross'?"

 **Human babies are weird and gross. But . . . not this.** Never this. They're going to do this every day. Every _hour_.

Eddie laughs. "Good luck with that, dear. I _can't_." To back it up, Eddie deliberately shows him memories of adolescence, of the restless hunger buzzing under his skin and spending entire days jerking off, until the friction was physically painful and the ache in his balls was no longer pleasant, and it still not being enough.

 **We can.** For one, they can use much better lube than that nasty chemical stuff, and after that it's just a matter of managing fluid flows and tissue growth. They can repair _bones_ ; a little skin isn't a problem.

"No," says Eddie again. And, like a revelation, like a feast, he begins to think of all the things two humans can do together, seeking this closeness. The only appropriate response is to escalate with things that humans can't do together, but that they probably can. "All right, all right, uncle!" cries Eddie after only a few moments of that, but he is laughing, open and joyful.

The feeling is very mutual.

**Love you, asshole. Mine, always.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read a whole lot of Venom comics, and now feel like I have a better sense of the relationship. I feel like my Venom is a little bit more of a scientist and less of an asshole than either comic! or movie!Venom, but I can only write what I know, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> As usual, posted without beta. Please poke me if you spot and spelling/grammar errors.


	4. Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner and a movie, not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're watching _Hidden Figures_ which is an excellent movie that you should watch if you haven't yet.
> 
> Yes, humans really do [strap ourselves to bombs so we can go to space](https://xkcd.com/1133/); and, yes, we have more computing power in our cell phones than the Apollo missions had, both onboard and at ground control.

**Do you want to go on a date?**

" _What?_ " He is so surprised he says it out loud, which causes more than a few people to look at him; but he wears a bluetooth around these days, so he just motions to it and everyone goes back to their coffee.

**Do you want to go on a date?** his symbiote repeats. **You wanted to go see that new biopic. We could go together. And then go swim after.**

Eddie has the absurd urge to laugh, because his symbiote just suggested dinner and a movie, and that's so _first date_. They're as attached as it gets, more married than dating, having sex on a nearly daily basis. It's still . . . sweet. How much his symbiote wants to do this properly. Get it _right_.

"Yeah, okay," he says, helplessly charmed.

 

He buys an enormous bucket of popcorn, extra butter. It had taken him by surprise, how much feeding having a symbiote takes. He eats like an Olympic athlete, easily four thousand calories a day. On a swim day, ten thousand. That's aside from the meat, which - they're still not sure why he needs so _much_ , but they eat seals whole, one a week. He buys popcorn and M&Ms and Reese's for the movie, in preparation for the high-speed underwater chase later.

The movie is actually really great, but his symbiote distracts him with questions. He can also feel him looking through his memories, trying to get context. It doesn't understand why skin color should matter. It doesn't understand why being a woman should matter. Anne is a woman, and she is the literal best.

_I know,_ he thinks back. _It goes back a long way. It would take too long time to explain right now. I will later, though._

**Okay.**

They finish watching the movie together. On the way out of the theater, his symbiote asks, **Did you really go to space on _manual calculations_?**

_Yeah,_ he replies.

**Humans.** It's half-derogatory and half-admiring, like his symbiote isn't sure whether to be amazed by the audacity or worried about people strapping themselves to bombs so they can get shot into space.

_Yeah,_ he says again.

They'd gone to the more expensive theater because it was closer to the shore, and now they strolled the few blocks that would bring them to the ocean. His symbiote is thinking about people he's seen, in the movie and around, and then he hits him with the memory of people that he -

\- didn't want to be eating, is the thing. He was hungry when LIFE had him, starving, because they'd been giving his hosts a perfectly balanced bran diet when what they'd needed was greasy hamburgers by the dozen. And that's not even the point. The point is the number of dying hosts who'd been brown on the outside. Why should it matter? They were all the same on the inside.

"Okay,"he says out loud. "Racism."

He does his best to explain. It takes a while, because first he has to explain slavery and once his symbiote understands slavery he is fucking _outraged_.

He's never been outraged before, not in Eddie's experience. He's been curious, he's been excited, he's been _lingeringly resentful_ toward Dan. He's even, lately, begun expressing love; but he's never been outraged. At first he isn't able to parse it _as_ an emotion, it's just so all-consuming. It's like the brain-hunger, when the symbiote had been starving for phenylethylanime and heads had been the only thing it could think about. This is the same kind of intense, but it's desire to hunt and rend without any desire to kill. Just to hurt.

Eddie sighs, breathing in the salty ocean wind. "No," he says. "No."

They walk to the edge of the dock, where a big metal fence prevents anyone from accidentally walking into the water. They don't slow down, vault over it, the symbiote's strength letting them pull off a move that Eddie could never have managed alone. It's Venom that hits the water.

It had, thankfully, been easier at first. Venom isn't even slightly shark-shaped, and otherwise the harbor seals have been trained by generations of friendly human divers to find hominids non-threatening. They'd been swarmed, that first time, and they'd been able to catch and kill six in quick succession before stopping to eat even one. Now, of course, the seals know that Venom is bad news, and will scatter if they spot them. They must slink low on the ground, looking up through the moonlit waves to spot potential prey.

**Why not? It is bad!** The kind of bad they eat.

_If we don't allow people to learn and change and grow,_ he thinks back, as they find a nice sheltered crevice that isn't really visible from above, _then we don't deserve each other either._

His symbiote goes quiet, and the silence rings.

They don't talk while they ambush an unlucky seal. Well, they wouldn't _talk_ anyway, underwater, but they don't converse. He can feel his symbiote thinking around the problem, trying to find a way to refute it, and failing. It's not like he hadn't known that what his people did to hosts was wrong, and he'd done it anyway. Society is a strong pressure, after all, strong enough that he'd had to burn his way home to earn - this. And he does deserve it now, because he had; but he understands perfectly well that he wouldn't have been able if he hadn't learned to love Eddie more than he hated being outside, alone, unhosted.

**Is bad, though,** is the final verdict.

_Of course it's bad. Which is why there is no place on Earth anymore where it's legal._

**Happens anyway.**

_Yes,_ thinks Eddie, honest. Then, _Racism is thinking the way Riot thought. That he was better because he was a symbiote, instead of just different. Racists think they are better because their skin is a different color._

They eat while his symbiote processes that. He goes digging through Eddie's memories a bit, and learns what misogynist and homophobe and Islamophobe and Anti-Semite mean, too. He understands the basis now, the lie humans tell themselves. He just can't wrap his mind around why. There doesn't seem to be any benefit to anyone.

Eddie does the mental equivalent of a shrug. _It makes them feel powerful. It makes them feel . . . less alone._

**Stupid.** It's more than a little smug. He has Eddie, and Eddie has him. They don't need imagined superiority. They were better than needing to feel better than anyone else on day one. They've only continued to improve each other since, moment by moment.

_Yeah, well,_ thinks Eddie. _Love feels better than hate._

It really does. That thought is smug too, and a little sad. All the other symbiotes are horrible racists, so they don't get to enjoy the way human brains light up when they're happy. They don't get to love Eddie.

_Ugh. I only want you._ He kind of wants right now, in fact, swimming in the polluted water of the bay surrounded by bits of the whole seal they just ate.

**Yes,** and, oh, it's mutual. Dinner and a movie and . . . **_Mine_.**

 

They still have to get back out of the water and retrieve his bike and go home. Well, they don't have to, they could just do it there. But it's . . . better, when they can see, and they're still learning. So they go home. The whole way, there's an undercurrent between them, _wantneedmine_. They manage to park and fumble the key in the lock. The door is barely closed behind them before they're struggling to get rid of their clothes, gasping and grasping for it.

Sex with his symbiote, after some initial hangups, is the best Eddie's ever had. Partly, he is sure, it's because his symbiote is in there with him, can feel what he feels and intimately knows what works and what doesn't. Mostly, though, it's because his symbiote is in there _with_ him, and the connection is like grabbing a live wire and being electrocuted by his own brain chemistry. In a good way.

They get their pants off, and underpants; they haul the shirt up over their head, and just let it drop. They're practically vibrating by the time they get to the bed, and Eddie lies down on his back. It's better, after all, when they can watch.

They haven't even done anything particularly outré, not yet. His symbiote loves, fiercely, protective and possessive, but he is wary about sex. Wary of doing anything to hurt his host. He's no longer worried about a physical issue like, say, _sex killing him_ , which is good. He's just managed to grasp with low wordless certainty that sex can be a weapon more dangerous than bullets or blades, and he doesn't want that. So far, then, it has just been hand-jobs and . . . Eddie would be tempted to call them tentacle-jobs, if that wasn't so incredibly hentai.

But he asked him on a date, and it was a _good date_. Not, maybe, in terms of things being sweet and enjoyable the whole time, but they managed to work through another issue that wasn't quite crossing the species gap. His symbiote has made a choice, and Eddie didn't even have to explain any ethics, because he'd already known what is okay and what isn't. He _wants_ , in a way that leaves him aching in his bones, and he doesn't just want heat and friction.

"Hey, love," he says. "Mind if we try something a little different?"

His symbiote is curious, a little cautious, but also game for whatever Eddie is thinking about. Eddie thinks the thought as loudly as he can at his symbiote.

**Oh, really? But . . . teeth, Eddie.**

_Are you going to eat me?_

The denial is so strong that Eddie can actually taste it, brackish and bitter on his tongue.

_Well, then,_ he thinks.

That does it. He thought it might. The things that get his symbiote going aren't really physical, as a rule. He looks down to where a bulbous, slick-black head is forming between his legs, nightmare teeth and eyes like pearls. It's terrifying.

He is _so hard_.

"Oh," says his symbiote; shocked, apparently, by whatever his brain chemistry is doing now. Then he doesn't ask if Eddie is sure about this like he was thinking about, because he can feel Eddie wanting, and he doesn't hesitate either. He just - goes for it.

It takes Eddie about five seconds to realize he's not going to last. He's been thinking about it pretty much since he realized just how long the tongue is, and the thoughts haven't gotten any less explicit since his alien became his lover. He was absolutely right about how it would feel: slick, hot, textured enough to be amazing and smooth enough to glide, and 100% prehensile. Also, his symbiote is feeling his emotions and bouncing back others, wonder and awe and love.

It takes another ten seconds after that to manage a coherent enough thought that thinking it will get the information across. He gets back a kind of mental static, the brain equivalent of 'yes and?' The tongue doesn't stop moving for an instant. If anything, the glide becomes longer, wetter, a clear declaration of intent. Well, that and the way his symbiote grins, all needle-bright teeth. Eddie can't even, so he lets his head fall back instead, staring up at the ceiling instead.

**No. Watch.**

Eddie could object again, but what would be the point? He's pretty sure symbiotes don't have orgasms on their own, and there's no such thing as early ejaculation when your partner isn't quite separate. So he drags his head up, watching. His symbiote winks and tongues at the head of his cock, the slit where another glob of pre-come oozes out. Eddie moans, helplessly entranced. He pulls his whole tongue back in one motion, which leaves Eddie shaking, and licks where his lips would be if he had lips but since he doesn't he's just licking teeth. " **Delicious.** "

That's it. Eddie is just completely done. He feels his eyes rolling back in his head, which suddenly weighs about a million tons, as he comes. There's a brief spike of something from his symbiote which he thinks is maybe annoyance, hey-I-was-gonna, and then that tongue is lashing around him, _licking up the come_. Eddie takes another panting breath as the thought sets off another round of feel-good fireworks low on his spine; because, yeah, things taste completely different to his symbiote but he knows the way the flavor profile bends now, knows that come ends up tasting like candy.

His symbiote keeps licking him all the way through it, and on and on until the flip in his brain goes off and it's painful instead of painfully good. Then he sinks back under Eddie's skin, a low vibrating purr wrapped around his liver. **Liked that.**

He doesn't seem to be expecting a response, which is good because Eddie can't give one. Not with words, anyway. He's pretty sure his symbiote is getting everything else, loud and clear.

**Yes.** And, **Sleep now. Safe.** That's all he says, but Eddie knows that what he means is, 'I will eat the heads off anyone stupid enough to attack us while you sleep,' and, a little under that, 'human dreams are super trippy and I'm the right kind of high right now to really enjoy watching some of them, so make with the REM cycles,' although not in so many words. Eddie smiles a little, and relaxes just that little bit more, and drops off to sleep with his other half still humming below his ribs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many more of these I'm going to do. I just don't have that much to say about a couple that is happily in love.
> 
> As usual, prod me if you spot typos.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] Yours, Mine, Ours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109461) by [sksNinja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sksNinja/pseuds/sksNinja)




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